The dreaded "black bars"

[KingSeti]

Good Morning to all. I have a question about the black bars. I did a search for letterboxing and didnt find anything like my problem. I have been rippin and encoding for the last year and have come across a problem. While recently encoding a rip of a widescreen movie I am getting grayish bars on the top and bottom of the movie with the normal black bars after the grayish bars. I know this sounds a little confusing but let me explain, while watching on my tv, starting from the top down, I have a couple of inches of black then the inch or two of grayish then the movie, and naturally after the movie I have the grayish bar then the rest black. I set correctly on the first tab 4:3 and in the advanced tab set to 16:9 and full screen keep aspect ratio. If I change from 16:9 to 4:3, then the picture is stretched a little but no grayish bars. Can anyone tell me what could be wrong. I have done widescreen movies before and have not had this problem.

I use smartripper, dvd2avi and tmpgenc. I use kwag kvcdx3 mpeg2 template. Have been using this templat on the last 30 or so rips.

Thanx in advance!

[FoxGarrison]

I have the exact same setup for ripping DVDs as you do and noticed the grey bars in 2 films only: Halloween and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Would the movie you are converting be any one of the 2 movies I mentioned or would it be of the same time period, 1977-1978.

[tonyp12]

Some 16:9 DVD's have blackbars hardcoded in to the picture.

These are 2.35:1 movies like Goldmember or Panic room.

So you will stack blackbars on top of blackbars, on some dvd
players the first black bar will show up gray and not black.

By using Video arange method: Center(custom)
that cuts out the hardcoded first black bars
(to make a true 16:9) you should end up with one bar only.

[KingSeti]

FoxGarrison, the latest two movies I am doin are Jaws and Space Cowboys, one old and one newer.

TonyP, thanks for reply and may I ask if you have any suggestions for the setting in Center(Custom), since you obviously have come across this format? I did check the Jaws dvd and it does say 2.35:1!

Thanx for the reply's!

[tonyp12]

There is not settings for 2.35:1 -> 16:9 -> 4:3 in tmpgenc

If making a VCD try these settings:
Source: 16:9 , Video stream setting: 4:3
Center (custom size) 344 x 224


But best would be to use clipframe in the advance tab.

So you crop the 2.35:1 movie to be 16:9

[KingSeti]

Thanks TonyP, I am doin SVCD and I will give 464 x 464 a try.

Sorry if I mislead you, I know there is not a setting for 2.35:1, I meant the setting for the center(custom) box!

That is what I set, 16.9 source and 4.3 as video stream, if it is widescreeen. Gonna try 464 x 464!

Thanx!

[KingSeti]

Hey TonyP, you did an edit on me, lol! I never used the clip frame, can you point me to some information or give me some quick instrustions?

Thanks

[KingSeti]

Never mind, got the picture!

[tonyp12]

And if you click on the Mask Color settings and change it from black.

You can see the black bars staked on top of the now colored bars.

[KingSeti]

Now is it gonna matter what the template is that I am using (vcd/svcd/xvcd/xsvcd - 320-240, 352-480, 480-480, 528-480) or are those numbers shown in the picture good enough to rid the grayish bars in any 2.35:1 movies that have those added bars? Or is it just a matter of me trying different numbers to see what I like?

Thanks again TonyP

[tonyp12]

The 54 and the 58 numbers you get as you keep increasing them
until the hardcoded 2.35:1 bars go away.

The left/right 50 number is just to keep the aspect ratio close
to the original.

If the picture is black, drag the slider to a part of the movie that
is bright.

[KingSeti]

Beauty Mate!!! Thanks for pointing me to the clip frame option TonyP!

Worked like a charm, I was even able to up the bitrate's - Audio and Video that is - since I was putting on two disks anyway!

[dfgh11]

Unfortunately the methods used here to rid of the grey bars, will not present the movie in the correct aspect ratio from a 2.35:1 dvd.And if it does then it just cuts some of the picture of the sides, I found

[thayne]

Looks to me like maybe your TV is out of adjustment. I used to notice stuff like that then I just messed around with the contrast/brightness etc util the picture looked right and the bars were black